Hate in the Age of Trump

[applegrove]

https://newrepublic.com/article/140110/hate-age-trump-photo-essay-van-jones-johnny-milano?utm_content=buffer2fcb6&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

BY VAN JONES at the New Republic

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We are forced to confront many things in the images that photographer Johnny Milano spent five years capturing. The ceremonial burning of a cross and a swastika in an open field. The silhouette of a child, a young and defenseless observer of hate, situated between the flaming structures. The Nazi symbol on shirt and skin. Some of the images look modern; others seem straight out of an earlier era. They represent a people striving to keep with tradition, while simultaneously looking to rebrand their beliefs and appeal to new followers. Membership spreads not simply through inheritance, but through outreach.

Taken together, Milano’s images make it impossible to deny that white supremacy is alive and well in this country. Powered by social media platforms, and encouraged by the rise of Trump-as-champion, America’s hate groups have emerged from the fringes with a newfound sense of respectability. In 2015 alone, the number of homegrown hate groups jumped by 14 percent—a proliferation unprecedented in recent times.

These groups—Klansmen, neo-Nazis, white nationalists—did more than talk and meet and march. They plotted to turn their hatred into violence. “They laid plans to attack courthouses, banks, festivals, funerals, schools, mosques, churches, synagogues, clinics, water-treatment plants, and power grids,” reports the Southern Poverty Law Center. “They used firearms, bombs, C-4 plastic explosives, knives, and grenades.”

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Let these photographs serve as proof that we are far from the postracial ideal that many Americans have been clinging to. And let them remind us not to be fooled: The spread of white supremacy is not confined to the South, to states like Texas, Georgia, and Tennessee­—it extends deep into the heartland, to Pennsylvania and Maryland and Ohio and Indiana. Hate groups exist all across the United States—coming soon, quite possibly, to a neighborhood near you.

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[GP6971]

1. Pretty powerful photos

showing the level of hatred.